(1) Technical Field
The present invention pertains to systems and methods for cooperatively managing and processing intellectual property transactions.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Numerous universities, hospitals, non-profit organizations, research laboratories and similar inventive entities develop significant intellectual property but are faced with severe limitations in resources needed to protect, commercialize and manage that property. Most commonly, the most onerous limitation is insufficient funding to staff and equip a technology transfer department with the professionals and tools necessary to coordinate establishment of rights, including patents, trademarks, and copyrights, enforcement of those rights, and exploitation of the commercial and societal potential of the intellectual property.
Without sufficient funding, inventive entities are often unable to create an infrastructure that fosters and stimulates innovation in the organization. When innovation occurs, some inventive entities have internal Technology Transfer Departments (TTDs) that are responsible for analyzing the potential value of the innovation, determining the applicable and practical modes of protection available, securing professional expertise to parlay the innovation into intellectual property rights, licensing the rights or converting the innovation into usable products, services or systems. Once the value of the intellectual property has been mined, the TTD is faced with managing the portfolio of intellectual property, including administering license agreements, collecting royalties, overseeing foreign prosecution, and paying annuities to maintain protection in various jurisdictions. The mandate of the TTD is daunting and success is determined by how effectively it can forecast and coordinate hundreds of meticulous tasks and considerations.
One approach to address this situation is to create an online tool that automates many of the functions typically performed by a TTD. For instance, an inventive entity may provide online access to its invention disclosure form (IDF) to eliminate the need for TTD personnel to continually respond to requests for the latest version of the IDF. The IDE may be posted on a web site and downloaded as needed by inventors. Going a step further, the TTD may provide an online utility that allows for automatic upload of the completed form from the inventor to the TTD. This file transfer utility can be used to download and upload any number of the various forms used by a TTD, such as patent application templates, confidentiality agreements, licensing agreements, and joint research agreements. The TTD may manually or automatically analyze the viability or commercial potential of the innovation disclosed, and may then use the automated system to provide feedback to the inventor or to other entities as appropriate. The TTD still must piece together various steps of the process to manage the entire process, including filing of applications to protect the intellectual property.
Obviously, it is extremely desirable for such an online tool to provide tight security to prevent inadvertent or malicious disclosure of the potentially valuable information communicated using the online tool. Furthermore, different TTDs have differing practices, forms, evaluation criteria, strategies, and objectives. Hence, each inventive entity will typically develop and implement its own tool, and limit its access to its own administrators, employees, students, and inventors. Consequently, even with the availability of online tools, the inventive entity still needs its own staff to administer the entire process.
There is a need, therefore, for systems and methods that enable an inventive entity to implement a fully functional TTD with little regard to the level of resources available to that inventive entity.